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“Watershed” the drama play, written and stage directed by Wahid Ajmi and on which I worked as play scorer, music producer and sound designer has been awarded at the Carthage Theater Festival (Les Journées Théâtrales de Carthage) for being the most accomplished work جائزة العمل المتكامل.

It is with great joy and pride that I part of the team of this theater play receive this award, as I wish the best for “Watershed” in its upcoming tours and participations in festivals.Link to facebook post

Lobna Noomen and Mahdi Chakroun are two of the closest fellow artists to me in Tunisia. Not only on a personal level but also on the artistic one. Lobna and Mahdi succeeded through the years to establish their proper scene and develop their own believing crowd through engaging into their artistic values and preserving the integrity of their vision of art and engagement, against all the odds and the dominant mediocrity and corruption ruling upon the Tunisian cultural and artistic scene.
Today, and despite the appearant gap in styles and backgrounds we made it to produce our first collaboration. It is the fruit of a spontaneous exchange of ideas during a workshop at their place in Ez-zahra, Tunis. A revisit of a well-known old tunisian folk song entitled “Yamma Wajatuha” (literally translates to: “Oh mother, you’re hurting her”).
Mahdi Chakroun initiated the thematic with his personal pre-arrangement only to develop into a snowball effect of an evolving bass track, enriched and enhanced with his interpretation on Oud and Lobna’s typically emotional and silky voice.

Lobna has actually sung this song in Bahrain in 2013 in front of the Bahraini minister of culture. Lobna dedicated this song to every oppressed woman enduring any sort of violence. Today, we re-dedicate the same song, to every oppressed woman all over the globe.

I was driving the scanian landscape last summer while listening to Ludovico’s 2013 “in a time lapse” album.
One specific song has caught my attention beyond the evident joy of a listener: “Newton’s Cradle”.
I always had the intentions to add metal elements to the epic orchestration of this italian composer; it’s a beautifully dramatic song with very tense and airy contrast to its different movements, aspects that gave me the push to communicate to it with a different language: progressive metal.
Today, comes the day I jammed over different slices of this track including a mashup/cover of Tunisian 90’s track Mahboubi into the jam.
All went through the feel of the moment as the only purpose of it all was pure fun!

Extracted from the EP “Öde”, this is the music video for the starting track of this 4 tracks piece:

A visual interpretation directed and captured by Malek Khemiri
Dancer and choregrapher: Sandra Abouav
Editing, VFX and color grading: Rami Jar
Additional visual performance: Marwen Blue
Drawing: Bochra TaboubiIt is with a great heart that this team put this pure effort into this work.
Much thanks to the talented team.Malek Khemiri is a tunisian film maker and photographer as well as a rapper, most notoriously known for his works as/with Armada Bizerta.

It has been such a pleasure and experience to score and produce the music of Wahid Ajmi’s Watershed play.
The premiere in city of culture in Tunis has been a beautiful success while more dates will follow.
Much thanks to the crew and the crowd.

52hertzwhale new EP entitled “Öde” is now streaming on soundcloud and available for download on Bandcamp.

This piece of 4 tracks EP is produced and performed by Heny Maatar aka Fusam between the years 2015 and 2017 / Kerkennah, Sfax (Tunisia) and Lund (Sweden).
Mastered by Marius Krämer aka Bassinfected, Berlin, Germany.
Öde is Fusam’s second release under 52hertzwhale moniker, after the debut full length “Klexos”.
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Additional bass on Clockwork Reverie by Mouldy Souissi aka Nero Crow. Artwork photography and design by Heny Maatar.
This humble work is dedicated to the departed wild soul of Ghassen Hadhri. All gratitude goes to the moon of the whale Hanna Cinthio, Marius Krämer, Bassem Daouk and all the dear friends.

Heny entered the studio to record 4 songs EP of his newly born Death Metal comeback project “Testosteruins”.
The tracks include material he co-wrote with ex-band members in 2003, 2005 and 2008. The EP will be entitled “Suffering Masculinity” and will be produced entirely by Heny.

I was enjoying Katharsys latest EP Metallicity. I felt like there could be more Metal music into this than the title itself. Hence, I grabbed my guitar and improvised riffs right upon the original mix of “Subsiders”, with some re-arrangements and additions to some of the rythmic structures.

Here is the result:

I believe Katharsys is one of the most distinct Neurofunk and DNB producers out there, and it comes in the shape of the heaviest and the grooviest electronic rock n roll, this french duo is a true banger.
Enjoy them here: Soundcloud – Beatport – Facebook

DFC abbrev. Dorsolateral Frontal Cortex, or the cerebral part that’s responsible for the simulation of images while listening to music. A concept project that consists on performances and workshops created by Heny Maatar aka Fusam, electronic music producer and project manager at Don Dada, Don Dada is a Swedish organization that has been active in the MENA region working with different local cultural operators.
This concept event is designed to attract young Tunisian audiences exposing them to and involving them in a different, creative and democratized electronic music and digital culture/experience.

I still remember their interview on Metallian magazine back in 2005, when they claimed they were more of earthling humans living in France, rather than being literally french. The way they broke the notion of borders, the way they defended nature and other species and grew to become the greatest metal band on this planet.

This one goes for the Duplantier brothers. Thanks for the engagement, thanks for the inspirations.